News with Nuance: May 10, 2024

Your Friday dose of News with Nuance: the week's biggest stories, unpacked + more ..

Hi Readers,

It has been a very full, fruitful, and weighty couple of weeks around here, from my trip to Houston to serve on a panel for a day-long event on Christian Nationalism at Rice University, to Thursday’s OpEd in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

These are heavy times in America and in the world, and in the midst of it - daily life goes on, with bills to pay and dishes to watch and school music concerts to attend. I’m sure you all can fill in your own daily joys and trials - and how you balance them with the weight of the world’s growing violence, hatred, and fear.

Maybe partially because I know we all could use a little encouragement (and here I have to insert a huge thanks to all of you who have encouraged me this week! Your words and solidarity mean so much) - I want to begin the News with Nuance with a couple of the kind of stories I appreciate most around here, stories that cover big + overwhelming stories, like the war in Israel and Gaza, and like aging - by taking a look at humanity and at life and how joy and love sustain us in the midst of it all. So let’s start there - followed by our usual deep dive into the ways in which Christian Nationalism continues to infiltrate all kinds of social and political issues around the world. Let’s get to the news … with nuance …

Photo of Vincent Dransfield, from story in the New York Post

The Headline: 110-year-old NJ man who lives on his own and drives daily offers tips on longevity

In an age of biohackers and Botox, I found it refreshing and genuinely joyful to read this article about 110-year-old retired New Jersey firefighter Vincent Dransfield. Not as a sort of “how-to” guide on how to live as long as he has, because as Dransfield himself acknowledges, a lot of long life is reliant upon luck. Sure, money helps, and so does favorable genetics. But there’s a lot of luck involved, as we know painfully in untimely deaths of loved ones in our own lives, whether from war or tragedy or accident or cancer.

Rather, what I loved about this story is that it reminds us not to look at elderly folks as how-to manuals or cautionary tales, but instead to look at elderly folks and seniors among us as the treasures they truly are.

One of my favorite parts of being a pastor is getting to work with both extreme ends of the age spectrum in churches, from baptizing brand-new babies to getting to spend time in study and prayer with folks who are 80 and up. Just last month, I started a new pastoral call at Lake Nokomis Lutheran in Minneapolis, where much of my time will be dedicated to pastoral visitation, necessarily with lots of elderly and homebound parishioners. Working with elderly folks is honestly one of the most gratifying and grounding things that you can do.

I know that sometimes it can feel intimidating walking into a senior living home. It does sometimes for me, too, because the reality is that these are places where people die. But the more time I spend among elderly seniors in care facilities, the more I see the Holy Spirit in these places, as difficult as aging and caring for aging people can be. This week I received 5(!) compliments as I walked into the lobby of a senior home, so I would highly recommend trying this as a confidence booster for your new spring outfit! But in all seriousness, in conversations, study and prayer with elderly church folks, I have learned so much: they have wisdom to share, patience to offer, insights to lift up.

Dransfield is no different. At 110, he shares about his love of chocolate, coffee, and Italian food - and his past as a smoker. He doesn’t torment himself through difficult physical regimens, but he tries to stay active doing things that bring him joy.

Dransfield also counts himself as exceedingly lucky - an unpopular opinion in a society where sometimes it seems more popular to count all the ways the world has held you back. Despite dropping out of school at a young age to help support his family, and losing his wife of 54 years back in 1992, Dransfield kept an open heart to the world. He says it’s his friends and his relationships that keep him going.

The Quote: “Knowing people and loving people makes me live longer,” Dransfield said.”

Story by Allie Griffen, New York Post

Some related good news: Minnesota’s new labor board votes for nearly $23.50 an hour minimum wage for nursing home workers

The Headline: How the songbirds of Rafah help Palestinians cope with the terror of war

Photo by Mohamed Soleimani, Al Jazeera

Spring is finally here in Minnesota, and I’ve been spending some time this week thinking about birds, partly courtesy of Courtney Ellis’ recent newsletter where she shares resources to follow your local birds and migration patterns (don’t miss Courtney’s new book Looking Up: A Birder’s Guide to hope through grief).

Birds, with their songs and gentle winged flight, seem both anachronistic and impossible in a world where we more often see hunks of metal crashing through the sky. But improbably, even in war-torn Gaza, the birds are still singing.

The Quote:

Even before the war, Palestinians have long collected songbirds – canaries, goldfinches, lovebirds and sparrows – for their comforting melodies. Now, they’re becoming go-to mental health allies.

“The sounds of explosions from Israeli shelling are terrifying and there are no alternatives to calm the fear of children except the sounds of canaries,” says Raed al-Qudra, who has been displaced by the war from the centre of Khan Younis to an area south of the city.

Al-Qudra’s four daughters and two sons are among the more than one million children in the Gaza Strip who the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) estimates are in dire need of mental health and psychosocial support.

“My daughters love birds because their colours make them feel safer, calmer and more alive. We consider their presence in the house as part of the few means of entertainment remaining since the war,” he says.

Story by Mohamed Soleimane, Al Jazeera

A Few More Must-Read Stories from the past couple of weeks …

Don’t miss Minnesota Reformer reporter Deena Winter’s intrepid reporting on the “Feeding Our Future” scandal, in which nonprofit executives and ordinary people fudged reports of feeding children during the COVID pandemic in Minnesota, and pocketed the money instead. This story reminds me not only of the entrenchment of corruption, and the lack of vetting especially during Trump’s presidency, but also of the truth that every industry will include bad actors, and how much our society runs on our ability to trust one another.

Prosecutor shows texts bragging about stacks of cash as Feeding Our Future trial begins

Minnesota Education Department official testifies about reporting Feeding Our Future fraud to FBI

Feeding Our Future trial: thousands of meals purportedly served at a park. It was closed.

Feeding Our Future trial: Key witnesses say they never saw anyone serve meals

Aimee Bock’s ‘right hand man’ says everyone at Feeding Our Future took kickbacks

And also …

Donald Trump and O.J. Simpson: Testing the limits of justice

Body of sixth and final victim recovered from Key Bridge wreckage Tuesday

First these Army families lost their loved ones. Then the man assigned to help them took their money.

This Week in Christian Nationalism and Religious Extremism

While this newsletter won’t focus overall on Christian Nationalism, each Friday I will include a brief update from that week, as it’s both a continuing focus of my work and also, I think, a critical threat to both American democracy and the faithful witness of Jesus’ Gospel, which exists independently of the United States!

In one sentence: Christian Nationalism is a version of the idolatrous Theology of Glory, which replaces the genuine worship of God with worship of a particular vision of America, often rooted in a revisionist history of white people in the 1950s, before the Civil Rights movement or the women’s movement. Christian Nationalism supports a violent takeover of government and the imposition of fundamentalist Christian beliefs on all people. Christian nationalism relies on a theological argument that equates American military sacrifice with Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross. It suggests that Christians are entitled to wealth and power, in contrast to Jesus’ theology of the cross, which reminds Christians that they too have to carry their cross, just as our crucified savior did.

This Week: ICYMI, after much prayer and discernment, I took the opportunity to write on Mother’s Day for my hometown Minneapolis paper in order to raise concern about the devaluation of children’s lives in Gaza, and in general. It’s never easy to dive in head-first to a contentious topic, and I always try not to do so without much prayer, discernment, and conversation with folks I trust on multiple sides of any issue.

The reason I’m bringing this up here, is that one of things that really pushed me to conviction into writing on this topic was hearing Macklemore’s new protest song, and also this recognition from Religion News Service reporter Jack Jenkins, who notes that Macklemore calls out Christian Nationalist group CUFI (Christians United for Israel) in his song. As Jenkins explains in the thread linked above, CUFI was founded by far-right televangelist John Hagee, who formerly endorsed segregationist George Wallace for president, and ran a youth movement called Wallace Youth.

Among other outrageous and hate-filled claims, like suggested that Hurricane Katrina was incited by New Orleans’ gay pride parade, Hagee has also said:

(CW: antisemitic language and theories)

that Adolf Hitler was born from a lineage of "accursed, genocidally murderous half-breed Jews". Citing material from Jewish tradition, he claimed that the persecution of Jews throughout history, implicitly including the Holocaust, was due to the Jewish people's disobedience of God.

So yeah. As I’ve written before, I think it’s very important in covering and writing about Israel and Gaza to be on high guard against antisemitism. And it’s also important to track down the antisemitic and far-right associations of many of those claiming to be Israel’s biggest supporters on the Christian Right these days. As Macklemore says:

(CW: full lyrics include profanity)

“Who gets the right to defend and who gets the right of resistance
Has always been about dollars and the color of your pigment, but
White supremacy is finally on blast”

I’d encourage you to listen to the entire song on YouTube. Like me, you might find parts of it offensive. But I think that’s an inherent part of protest and the fight for justice. It is offensive.

(And I try to note, too, that calls for accountability from law enforcement and use of police to stop the free association and free speech of protesters are not akin to calls criticizing the police officers we all know who are out there risking their lives to try and protect and serve. Both things can be true; though it’s hard to maintain both of those truths sometimes. But the misuse of law enforcement to squelch dissent only makes things harder for the cops we know who are out there doing their best, again, to protect and serve).

In the same lens, of how right-wing groups and Christian Nationalist groups are trying to distort the narrative on Israel and Gaza and campus protests in America, from Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Spencer Ackerman:

Now The Students Are "Terrorists"

And from TomDispatch:

War Culture Hates the Ethical Passion of the Young

and

The Distortion of Campus Protests over Gaza

And also this, a quote from the first TomDispatch article above:

“What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and that love without power is sentimental and anemic,” Martin Luther King, Jr., said in 1967.

“Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love.”

If that’s not a call to action against Christian Nationalism and its requisite Theology of Glory, I don’t know what is.

But also remember this, regarding the Rev. Dr. MLK, Jr.,

And this …

As I said last night in the second part of my presentation on Christian Nationalism at Bethlehem Lutheran Church - Twin Cities, one of the most powerful tools of Christian Nationalists is getting people to give up the idea that there is an objective truth, and instead rewriting history without adherence to historical facts!

Journalist and Dartmouth professor Jeff Sharlet, who is Jewish and has written extensively on the threat of Christian Nationalism and the far right, has also been bravely documenting what’s happening on campus:

More Christian Nationalism in the News …

From the county jail in Itasca County, MN

And contrary to right-wing talking points, Putin is persecuting Christians, not defending them with his war on Ukraine

For Christian Nationalists, the Gospel is quickly reduced to authoritarian headship, and rules about genders, with white men on top

And often the “news outlets” publishing Christian Nationalist pieces are often propaganda outlets funded by ideological donors, some American and some Russian …

Luxury yachts and other myths: How Republican lawmakers echo Russian propaganda

But rest assured, most mainstream national news organizations follow an ethics code that requires adherence to the truth - so don’t be convinced by the “all media lies” line of reasoning often pushed by right-wing propagandists and by Trump himself:

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for all politicians …

And while Stormy Daniels is telling the truth, Evangelicals, Republicans and Trump defenders are calling for “decorum” - but Daniels’ refusal to be shamed is important and groundbreaking.

I was reminded again this week of famed Gilded Age American writer Edith Wharton writing about how some people would rather cover up the truth than admit to wrongdoing within their privileged social circle:

“It was the old New York way of taking life without effusion of blood, the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than scenes except the behavior of those who gave rise to them.

Archer felt like a prisoner in the center of an armed camp …

All these amiable and inexorable persons were resolutely engaged in pretending to each other that they had never heard of, suspected, or even conceived possible the least hint to the contrary.”

from Edith Wharton in The Age of Innocence, which still rings true a century later

Thank God for women writers!

And from the category of, you know Christian Nationalism has deeply infiltrated American religion when you have long lines of religious leaders lining up for the right to discriminate - when we are known more for whom we hate than who we love:

Legislature restores exemption allowing religious groups to discriminate based on gender identity

A key reminder here that while some of those protesting this law are non-white and non-Christian leaders (the leader pictured is an imam, who is Black) - the overwhelming majority of groups funding what they call “religious freedom” cases and activism, in order to discriminate on the basis of gender or sexuality, are white, affluent, right-wing Christian groups. They like to obfuscate that by platforming and often tokenizing others.

And this:

Some religious leaders say Equal Rights Amendment infringes on their rights

Again, like I said during my presentation at Bethlehem Lutheran, this nonsensical use of language strains credulity. It’s like the white Christians who claim the Civil War wasn’t fought about slavery - it was about states’ rights.

That’s right: the states’ right to enslave people!

Similarly, they claim these laws aren’t about discrimination or hate, they’re about “religious freedom.”

That’s right: the religious freedom to discriminate against people!

Something tells me Jesus would have seen right through it, too. And picked up stones with those who would be stoned.

Still, the grift goes on, fueled by media propaganda:

Inside the Christian TV show rallying Trump superfans with apocalyptic warnings

If you want to learn more, don’t miss fellow Broadleaf Books author Matthew D. Taylor’s new book, The Violent Take it by Force, coming out Sept. 24 but available now for preorder.

Cutting through the noise, I wanted to highlight this thoughtful piece from BoyMom author Ruth D. Whippman, who shares a similar point that I convey as well in my forthcoming book, Disciples of White Jesus: the Radicalization of American Boyhood:

“Smashing the patriarchy” would help men as much as women. Why is no one telling boys?

Unfortunately, most Evangelical pastors are focused more on their own egos, like this unfortunate story from aforementioned Dallas megachurch pastor Josh Howerton, who doesn’t think anyone else can preach but him - so he’s advertising on Instagram the chance to be in his audience, but only if you comport yourself appropriately!

And some places where I see Hope! And the Theology of the Cross …

One of my favorite moments from Houston, and kind words from Prof. Sam Perry. This is the kind of stuff that keeps me going when this work gets hard, (don’t read the comments on my recent Star Tribune piece, or dive inside my email inbox …)

Pushing back against the “religious freedom to discriminate,” United Methodists voted to accept LGBTQ clergy

By the way, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons, comms director for the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in DC, will be joining me here in Minneapolis at the June 8 meeting of Christians Against Christian Nationalism (Minnesota Chapter), at 3 p.m. at Hennepin Avenue UMC in Minneapolis. Join us if you’re available!

With so much radicalization happening online via social media, this sounds like great news for American students:

How a Connecticut middle school won the battle against cellphones

Plus,

Senate approves ban on ‘junk fees’

The IRS is targeting wealthy tax cheats

Amara Strande’s brave legacy lives on in Tartan, Minn., where toxic chemicals dumped by 3M have led to widespread cancer incidence

I loved this essay on honoring your mental health journey, from Maria Shriver

That’s an important guardrail against this, especially for those of us who work in “passion” fields like clergy, education, non-profits, etc.

And finally - three huge cheers for reporter moms! (I am finishing this very newsletter after taking a break for my oldest’s grade school music concert. He did great!)

One more thing … it’s a great time to be a Minnesotan. Go Wolves!

Great Reads on Substack

From

Heather Havrilesky

Process: What new story will mine joy from your imperfect life?

From

lyz

Dingus of the week: Free speech absolutists who want kids arrested

From

laleh

Can the tenured speak?

From

Tia Levings

Trump's Threat to Monitor Pregnancies is Real

From

Heather Cox Richardson

May 1, 2024

From

Michael Shapiro

Chapter 148: Reporting When You’re Part of the Story

From

Clint Schnekloth

No One Goes To Church | Everyone Goes To Church

From

Sarah Stankorb

United Methodists Eliminate Anti-LGBTQ Policies

From

Kristin Du Mez

Once more into the breach...

A word of advice for Christian college presidents

From

Jared Yates Sexton

A Major Escalation: Tucker, Dugin, and the Normalization of New Fascism

Decline and Destruction as Product and Entertainment

Whew. Like I said, lots of news. This was a special FREE edition of News with Nuance due to so many new subscribers this week. Please consider supporting

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Thanks for reading,

Angela

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